


someone with the atlas and the chart

by Arazsya



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:34:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28303155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arazsya/pseuds/Arazsya
Summary: Edward’s sure there must be somewhere that he could go to do more good. The healing that this place needs – thateverywhereneeds – isn’t something that he can manage with a few short prayers to Apollo and laying-on-hands.
Relationships: Edward Keystone/Tjelvar Stornsnasson
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26
Collections: Rusty Quill Secret Santa 2020





	someone with the atlas and the chart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jothowrote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jothowrote/gifts).



> Hope you like it! 
> 
> Title from Show of Hands' song _Captains_.

Edward has never been worried by crowds before. Not when they’re not expecting anything from him. He’s tall enough that it’s very difficult to get properly, frighteningly lost in them. As a paladin, he can stride through fairly easily, if he chooses to, because no one wants to be in the way of a representative of Apollo when attending to his duties. When he allows it to, the anonymity of it softens the edges that his family had left on him. Being amongst that crush of humanity had always had the echo of a promise, rather than a threat. Makes a lie of the ideals that his tutors had once tried to instil in him, before they had given up, of noble birth and riches and being set apart and above. If anything, he’d found them rather peaceful.

It’s different, now.

He supposes, with his back pressed to the tumbling façade of the town’s small Church to the pantheon, that he’d always been sure of his place in it, before. A paladin of Apollo. There to protect the people and to destroy evil wherever he may find it. 

That hasn’t changed. He still stands for that, loves it, wants to be nothing else. But there’s no evil here, and he should know – he’s patrolled every part of this town in the weeks since the world had been saved, and he’s seen nothing. He’s had time to get as introspective as he is, even on market day, when the little square teems with more life than he would have said could exist in the whole settlement, around offering to help the stallholders set up. They mostly let him. Taking pity, he thinks. But for all that he waits for it, no one needs him now.

The healing that this place needs – that _everywhere_ needs – isn’t something that he can manage with a few short prayers to Apollo and laying-on-hands. There’s both nothing for him and more than he could ever hope to do, and neither can grant him a direction.

Edward’s sure there must be somewhere that he could go to do more good. Be more useful. He’s tried asking, but Hamid is busy settling his family back into their home in Cairo, Zolf and Wilde are taking some time to be unavailable, Azu is undergoing preparations for her promotion within Aphrodite’s ranks, Carter has vanished, and Cel and Barnes are apparently building a boat. He’d tried offering to help with that, but Cel had explained, eventually, that it was something they were doing as just the two of them. Einstein is so busy that Edward can barely get a full sentence out of him on the mobile stone before he’s pinging off somewhere else, leaving his stuttering attempts to explain falling on an empty grey rock.

The Church has responded to his letters with nothing more than a few scratched-out lines telling him to stay put and attend to his paladin’s duties where he is, until they or Apollo tells him otherwise. He had tried not to read too much irritation into the spiking of the handwriting, or to the underlines in the latest one where they had told him to stop sending to them, but even without trying to, he hears them in Friedrich’s voice in his head when he tries to sleep.

So he stays where he is, waiting for someone to need him, watching the clouds shift overhead in a rising wind and wishing that they might take him with them.

He remains flatly and emptily grounded.

On the other side of the square, there’s a shift in the thronging people around Mr Stamos’ stew stand, as someone else steps out onto the cobblestones, and Edward tenses. It’s a stranger – he can tell that from the way that the locals scatter out of their path. They’ve grown used to each other’s company here, lately, are suspicious of newcomers, anticipating a returning infection, losing their selves again, as much as Edward tries to promise them that it’s dealt with, that he _knows_ it’s dealt with. They have as many nightmares as he does, going from the way that the night-time streets are never all that much quieter than the daylight ones, as people take walks in the cooler air to clear their heads.

Edward checks for evil, first, his fingers resting at the handle of his morningstar. There’s nothing, and he allows himself to relax, fractionally, quashing what he refuses to think might be disappointment because a lack of evil is good by definition.

They’re still half-in the shadow of the town hall, face obscured, and Edward squints, trying to make out detail. Newcomers might need help – directions to the nearest inn, or to the next village over, food for their journey, the blessings of Apollo. All things he can do that would at least make him feel like he was _helping_ , for a few brief seconds.

He recognises the hat, first. It’s a little more battered than he remembers, but it’s set at a familiar angle, and then finally its owner is out of the dark, and Edward can see his face properly.

Tjelvar, too, looks more battered than when Edward had last seen him. Not as haggard as some people he’s encountered, but he’s clearly not been sleeping either. His backpack is heavy over his shoulders, and he keeps shifting it like he’s strained something in one of his arms, but his stride is still purposeful as he makes his way through the crowd. He knows where he’s going, what he’s looking for, and Edward feels his own absence of intent like a pit in his chest, sand and dust slipping down over the edges and trying to carry him into it.

Edward takes a step in his direction, without meaning to, and then falters, his mind catching up with him.

They’d known each other for a few days, over a year ago. They had been good days, or, at least, Edward had thought they were, but they’re long past. He’s clearly headed somewhere, and he won’t have time for Edward.

He shuffles back into the church, and as he does so, there’s another gust of wind, violent enough to scrape against the roof tiles of the houses, and the clouds hanging overheard fracture, sending a sweep of sunlight across the square. Tjelvar glances around, in an effort to shield his eyes, and his attention lands on Edward. He pauses, mid-step, hardly seeming to notice as someone behind walks into his backpack. Then he turns, completely altering his course through the rest of the way to Edward.

“Edward!” he calls, the second he’s over halfway across the distance, with a broad smile. “Eddie!”

There’s no need to shout – it must be clear from how Edward’s staring that he’s already seen him. He starts to raise one hand into an uncertain wave anyway, but before it can get high enough, Tjelvar is already in front of him, grasping it in his. He gives it a brief shake, and then pulls him into a one-armed hug that Edward tells himself is probably just an orcish greeting. From the way that his heart stutters, it doesn’t believe him.

“How was Italy?” Tjelvar asks, when he pulls back. Still a little too loud. More than he needs to be, as the breeze dies down again.

“Evil.” The word comes out before Edward can come up with anything else – it _is_ the truth, but he feels his face burning with the thought that he should have given a proper greeting first. He’d thought about Tjelvar every day since they’d met, dreamed of him, imagined seeing him again and how he’d do better, next time. He opens his mouth again, hoping some kind of sparkling follow-up will tumble out, but Tjelvar is already laughing, with far more mirth than Edward’s answer would have merited even if it _had_ been a joke.

This close, Edward can see the lines from nights awake are even deeper than he’d thought. A little haziness around his eyes, like it’s getting harder to keep his balance. He could offer to help. Fatigue _is_ something that he can fix. And then Tjelvar wouldn’t sleep again tonight, because he can’t fix the nightmares, and he’ll be back in the same place he is now.

“How’ve you been?” he asks, instead. “I was wondering what happened to you, what with the…” 

“Oh.” Tjelvar waves an airy hand, and fixates momentarily on something somewhere over Edward’s left shoulder. “Keeping busy. You know. Lots to… lots to discover. Archaeology. Yes.”

“Right.” Edward nods, off-hand. _He needs help_ , he thinks, as he does so often, with that faint helpless edge of knowing that it’s not help he can give. “Are you staying here long?”

“Just a night. Early start in the morning and all that.” Tjelvar’s smile shifts towards the pained, confirming Edward’s suspicions that it’ll be an early start after a late night and as little dreaming in between as possible. “Want to make the most of the light. How about you? I would have thought you’d be off somewhere, I don’t know, searching for destiny.”

“If it’s _destiny_ ,” Edward says. “It’s supposed to happen whether I look for it or not, isn’t it?”

Tjelvar laughs again, and claps Edward briefly on the shoulder, so emphatic that it stings. Overblown, like the rest of it – the friendliness, the enthusiasm. The Tjelvar he’d met in the Alps had been like that only in flashes, when it was something he’d needed to be. Trying to calm a bar fight. Trying to get Bertie on side. Whatever it is he’s trying to convince now, it’s inside. A shell he can’t cast off, because a crack in that will show him nothing but a cobwebbed shattering underneath.

“Edward,” he says, and his voice softens, just a little, away from the affected brashness he’s been using. “I don’t suppose you’d like to help me out, what you? I’m, er, looking for a lost library. It once belonged to the Church of Athena, but, well, you know how people can get about books sometimes – that is, they… don’t like that people might read them. It got buried, and I’m doing my best to unbury it. If you don’t want – or, can’t, then that’s perfectly fine, yes? I just, er… just. If you could.”

“Really?” Edward’s question cuts across any further knots in Tjelvar’s sentences. “You genuinely want me along?”

“Well, you were – that is to say, you were quite useful last time, don’t you think?” There’s a brief flicker of something across Tjelvar’s expression, and it’s clear enough that he’s just as lost as Edward is. He’s just decided to bury himself in work to escape what had happened, where Edward had found none of his to be done. “I’d appreciate the help. Really.”

Edward hesitates for a long moment. He wants to say yes, wants to drop all the nothing that he’s holding and stride off with Tjelvar into the wilderness. But, with a feeling like thorns catching at his legs, he remembers that the Church had told him to stay put, do his work. They probably wouldn’t think that this counts.

And yet. Tjelvar must realise that just charging off into another quest isn’t doing enough to heal him. He’s hurting, he’s asking for help, and he clearly believes that Edward can give it. How can that _not_ be his work, just because he wants to go anyway?

“Where are you staying?” he asks. “We’ve got spare beds in the Church, if you’d like. It’d make it easier for when we leave in the morning.”

Tjelvar lets out a breath that Edward hadn’t realised he was holding, and pats at Edward’s shoulder again, this time far more gently.

“Thank you,” he says, and then clears his throat, gives a short cough when that doesn’t seem enough. “Why… why don’t we find get some food and catch up?” He glances over the market as if seeing it for the first time, and then gestures vaguely towards Mr Stamos’ stall. Starts away towards it, then pauses, to make sure Edward is following.

Edward starts to, then takes a moment to pinch himself, just gently – if this _is_ a dream, it’s not one that he’s ready to wake from quite yet. None of it changes, though there’s another brief flurry of wind over the rooftops. He smiles, and then hurries after Tjelvar, a spring in his step for the first time in a while. He doesn’t know where he’s going, and Tjelvar seems to know nothing else, but they’ll work it out, somehow. Together.


End file.
